


A Path of His Own

by blivengo



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types, Forgotten Realms
Genre: Backstory, Based on a Dungeons & Dragons Game, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Dungeons & Dragons Campaign, Dungeons & Dragons Character Backstory, Dungeons & Dragons References, Fantasy, Gen, High Fantasy, Inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, No Dungeons & Dragons Knowledge Required, RPG, Role-Playing Game, Roleplaying Character, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23755564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blivengo/pseuds/blivengo
Summary: A simple farmer with an ancient book from a group of long-forgotten monks seeks vengeance over peace when his village is brutally attacked...





	A Path of His Own

The ritual had been the same since the day his father handed down their family’s sacred artifact: light one candle, sit cross-legged on the middle the bed, and read from the _Ya Ath Tel' An_. Neither he nor his father knew what the title meant, nor would they be able to read any of the now-faded gooseberry ink of the original text if one of their ancestors hadn’t painstakingly translated every word in the margins. But they knew the content by heart. The _Ya Ath Tel' An_ was a collection of lessons told through the tales of a long-forgotten order of monks who practiced serenity and peace in all things with a defensive style of martial arts that utilized only their fists and remained unwaveringly nonlethal, and, like his father before him, Oberon had read it cover to cover more times than he could remember.

Unlike his father, though, Oberon had never practiced the art. While he was enthralled by the stories, the idea of only using your fists and not going on the offensive never sat right in his mind. Maybe it was the years of watching his fellow villagers, his father included, get taken advantage of by petty bandits because they never fought back, or maybe something inside him was simply wired to be more aggressive - whatever the reason, as he grew into a young adult he decided he would use the teachings of the _Ya Ath Tel' An_ as a base to develop his own style, a style that would fight back, a style that would, if it came to it, kill.

Because he knew his father would never approve of such an endeavor – even at twenty-six Oberon still held his father’s opinion of him in high regard and hated disappointing him – he had taken to going for long “walks” in the forest after his daily farming chores were complete. What he was really doing, though, was honing his new technique with sticks and old farming tools for weapons and dead trees for enemies. It was during one of these clandestine training sessions that he caught a whiff of charred thatching and turned back toward the village to see plumes of smoke rising in the dusk.

Running at full speed, the hard-toothed rake he’d been using to exercise dead trees still tight in his grasp, he managed to break the tree line at the edge of the village in time to see a new, much more organized group of bandits rounding up the women and children to unceremoniously shove them into rolling cages while dispatching what was left of the men. His heart sank to the tilled soil, his knees went soft, but he managed to catch himself from falling by using the rake as a crutch. He scanned the scene, frantically looking for his father, but Oberon knew that his father must already be dead – he knew the man wouldn’t have fought back, and the foe had finally arrived that calmly paying off wouldn’t satiate. These heathens were out for blood, and Oberon planned to oblige.

He drew on the teachings of the _Ya Ath Tel' An_ but replaced serenity and peace with ferocity and rage. His strength returned in a wave as he spun the rake over his head, let out a piercing cry of pain and vengeance, and charged. The bandits met his approach with laughter, not even drawing their swords. They thought this angry farmer, running at them wildly, his silvery black hair and stubbled cheeks making him look like a mere vagabond, would be no bigger threat than the rest, but they had misjudged. As the first bandit he encountered reached out to snatch the rake away, Oberon swiftly countered, bringing the bottom of the long handle up and catching the bandit below the chin, sending a spray of blood from his mouth as he bit through his own tongue. The laughing stopped abruptly, and two nearby bandits, one donning a red bandana and one with his shirt sleeves ripped off, drew their blades and spat curses in a strange language as they approached.

Undeterred, Oberon spun, letting the momentum carry his two-handed grip to the end of the handle he’d just used to maim the first bandit, and swung the makeshift weapon in a downward arc that disarmed the sleeveless bandit as he blocked the blow away. Oberon pivoted, again letting the weight and trajectory of the rake fuel his attack, and slammed the returning upward arc squarely in the bandana bandit’s leather-clad midsection. The man grimaced but grabbed the rake before Oberon could make his next swing. The weapon proved too long and clumsy for his budding style.

In a harsh, forced common, the bandana bandit said, “Now boy die!” and held his sword over his head for a killing blow. Oberon launched his end of the rake up to block, and the handle snapped in two. This gave Oberon and idea. As the bandana bandit dropped the toothed end of the rake he’d been holding, Oberon summersaulted forward, grabbed it, and rose to his feet now dual wielding his once long weapon. _If only I could combine this feeling with the ability to use each end’s momentum simultaneously_ , he thought. Both bandits were on him now, with several others closing in, and Oberon had inadvertently backed himself against a fence. This would be his end, but at least he’d go down fighting. _I wish I had a way to throw my offhand to stun one of them from here while I attacked the other, then I could do this. I need a real weapon – my weapon._ But there was no more time for contemplative wishing, he had to act.

He feinted toward the bandana bandit with a left-handed strike then quickly turned and hit the shirtless bandit with a sweeping righthand strike that tore flesh from his face. Oberon grinned, happy with his work, but the feeling was short-lived. As he turned to attack the bandana bandit, the bandit he’d originally cracked in the jaw kicked him square in the chest, taking his wind. The bandit spat blood in Oberon’s face and brought his sword over his head in a two-handed grip, intending on severing Oberon’s head.

“Enough!” shouted a half-orc on horseback who was dressed more like someone from the Merchant’s Guild than a bandit, and the would-be killer froze mid-swing. “This feisty one will be good for the pits, shackle him to one of the carts and let’s be done with this refuse.” He barked a final command in what seemed like the same strange language the bandits had used and rode off.

The notion of imminent death had stunned Oberon, but at this he dropped the rake pieces, rolled under the fence, and made a dash back toward the forest. He made it roughly halfway across the field before a searing pain in his calf felled him, filling his mouth with minerally dirt. He spat and looked back to see an arrow protruding from his aching calf. He tried to stand, but his leg wouldn’t hold any weight. Unwilling to give up and go quietly, he crawled, dragging his injured leg and kicking out against the coming bandits with the other. One of the bandits he’d not yet encountered, a female orc with a missing ear, walked easily around his wild flailing and said, in a similarly broken common, “stay still, stay alive.” The last thing Oberon remembered seeing was the silhouette of a club blocking out a line of stars, and then everything went black.

***

Oberon spent the next few months healing and then slowly becoming the main attraction of what he learned was the Rookmaw’s weekly fighting pits, a new scar across his right eye from the club blow that knocked him out the only thing he carried with him from his village. Though he did quickly adapt and become an excellent combatant, it was more his strange weapon that drew crowds rather than his actual prowess. For his debut match, the gang billed him as “Farm Boy” and gave him a short-handled hay sickle as his only weapon. He ended up winning the fight easily as his opponent barely did more than cower and beg to be set free, but the way he brandished the weapon, although he never actually used it, caught the eye of the half-orc leader of the Rookmaw, Gulchuk Varth – the same well-dressed half-orc that led the attack on Oberon’s village.

After that day’s fighting had ceased, Gulchuk took a shackled Oberon to a blacksmith and told the craftsman to make his new prize fighter whatever he wanted, tossing several coins on the counter. “Aye, look ‘round and see what ye like,” said the smith, but Oberon had been thinking about this since the village attack. He wanted something that could be like two weapons without being separate. Looking around the shop was providing no options, unfortunately, until he noticed a rather large, rusted flail that must have belonged to a goliath tucked behind a rack of axes. Oberon bent down, pulled the heavy-handled weapon free, and drug it to the front of the shop.

“Can you take the chain and bludgeon from this and attach it to something like a small hay sickle?” Oberon asked.

“I can, fer certain, but I don’t know why ye’d want to,” replied the smith, puzzled at the strange request.

Gulchuk tapped the counter, said, “The coin’s for work, not curiosity. I’ll be back for it tomorrow,” and ushered Oberon out of the shop. As he sat up that night in the cage he was kept in, he couldn’t help but be excited.

At first, Oberon was clumsy with the weapon, mostly using the sickle while bunching up the chain and bludgeon in his offhand; however, as he started to use both pieces together, letting their separate momentums drive his attacks much like he had with the rake, he became a spectacle of aggressive form and function. After one particularly impressive bout where Oberon had disarmed his opponent by hurling the bludgeon of his weapon up over the other fighter’s head and then bringing it down hard before pulling it back and letting loose with the sickle, burying it in his opponent’s shoulder, he was taken to the box where Gulchuk hosted the most important visitors: those with the deepest pockets.

Upon arrival, Oberon was shown off like livestock to a large, bald human male with an oddly shrill voice. The man and Gulchuk were clearly talking about the fighter as if he weren’t right there, but Oberon couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. He picked up something about his weapon and a higher cost, and then the man giggled and shook Gulchuk’s hand. Oberon was then returned to his cage having never been spoken to, or even acknowledged, really, by either man.

Late that night, when the guards were mostly drunk and dozing, Oberon was pulled from sleep by the feeling of a hand closing over his mouth. He struggled to get up but was being held firm. His eyes darted to his would-be assailant and recognition blossomed in his mind: this was the one-eared orc woman who’d clubbed him at the village. “No stay still this time, Farmy, this time move,” she whispered, looking into Oberon’s eyes, waiting for a sign of comprehension. As Oberon nodded beneath her grip, she removed her hand, mouthed, “quiet,” and pointed to the open cage door.

Oberon stared at her, his face scrunched up in confusion, and whispered, “Why?”

The orc sighed and said, “When I taken, had two ears and life. You sold. Worse than pits. Must go.” She got up then and jerked her head toward the door.

Groggy from sleep and only vaguely understanding what was going on, Oberon got up and slowly made his way to the door. Both guards were out cold, as were the rest of the fighters. Before making his escape, though, Oberon turned, put a hand on the orc’s shoulder, and asked, “Are you coming?”

She shook her head. “My place here. Nothing else left. You go.” She took his hand off her shoulder and shooed him out. Not sure what else to do, Oberon bowed and snuck away from the pits…but not for good. 

After less than an hour steeling himself for what he was about to do, Oberon slipped back into the pits, grabbed his custom weapon, slit the two guards’ throats, and opened the cages holding his fellow fighters. This would not be a quiet escape after all. As the newly freed men laid waste to everything in sight, Oberon waited in the shadows for Gulchuk Varth to show.

It didn’t take long for the Rookmaw to respond in force, and almost as quickly as it began the riot had been squelched. Many of the fighters now lay dead, but not without having taken several of their former captors with them. It wasn’t until things were under control that Gulchuk finally strode in to survey the damage. At this point it was too foolish for Oberon to attempt his revenge, so he came up with an alternative. From a nearby Rookmaw corpse, Oberon ripped enough cloth to scrawl a message, tied it to an arrow, and aimed for Gulchuk’s calf.

By the time the half-orc had finished flailing in pain and managed to read “I’ll kill you someday” written in blood on the cloth tied to the arrow lodged in his calf, Oberon had made his proper escape.

***

It was three days’ travel by foot and the generosity of a stranger with a wagon before Oberon was once more standing at the tree line of his village. As he approached his house, it was clear no one was left – bodies, though picked partly clean by scavengers, remained where they fell, but there was no sign of his father. Though his mind told him otherwise, his heart wouldn’t stop hoping this meant he could still be alive. Oberon stayed a final, somber, lonely night in the only home he’d ever known, reading his favorite passages from the _Ya Ath Tel' An_. In the morning, with his book, weapon, and a meager pack of supplies, he set out on a path of his own, keeping vengeance for the village he left behind ever-present in his mind, and hope to see his father again always in his heart…


End file.
